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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: data_rox who wrote (53341)	7/8/2006 1:03:19 PM
From: engineer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 197011

so, are there essential WCDMA patents which expire soon? Since NOK and others in Euro were early in filing, does their patents also expire giving them less percentage of "essential patents"? One more thought. Does an improvement patent, one which is based on a previous patent, and adds to the functionality of it, thus extend the original patent due to it's citing? Can that improvment patent thus stand on it's own merits or can someone replace a simliar patent under the improvment patent which would tend to create a new foundation?

To: data_rox who wrote (53341)	7/8/2006 1:42:21 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197011

Open Technologies: Proprietary or Comittee-Based Data, << I always find it amusing that some people refer to "proprietary technology standards like IS-95, cdma2000 (IS-2000) or IS-856,". Just because technologies are developed to meet the needs of certain markets IN A CERTAIN TIME FRAME, does not mean that they are "proprietary" in the sense that some put forward. >> I am likewise just as amused by those that can't (or refuse to) distinguish between PROPRIETARY (the technology's architecture is under the control of a single company around which a value chain develops) OPEN (its interfaces are published and other companies are encouraged to integrate their products with it) TECHNOLOGY and a COMITTEE-BASED OPEN TECHNOLOGY and standard as it relates to the creation of market place power and ompetitive advantage and its potential for optimizing an investor's return on investment. The antithesis of a proprietary open technology governed by de jure standards, is comittee-based open technology governed by de jure standards, where no individual company has control of the technologies architecture. The proprietor of a proprietary open technology who develops technology in house before making it open generally has an architectural lock on products utilized in that technology. Witness the dramatic market share differential QUALCOMM enjoys in chipsets utilized in base stations and mobile stations being sold into the CDMA market place by its value chain, and its market share in chipsets utilized in base stations and mobile stations being sold into the WCDMA market place by a larger and more financially stable (in many cases) pool of OEMs and ODMs. << Having seen and experienced the development and deployment of those standards, ALL of them had multiple companies participating in the development, and ALL of them have multiple IP holders....who btw, license their portfolio of 3gpp2 "proprietary" patents. >> "Having seen and experienced the development and deployment of those standards" MYSELF, I can attest to that, and I can also differentiate between the methodology employed by 3GPP and a similar but markedly different methodology controlled by QUALCOMM in 3GPP2. Since leaving the wireless scene for PKI in the enterprise at just about the time the two partnership projects were created, I've visited the FTP sites of both (and the mail-exploder of 3GPP) very regularly since. While it's a rather tedious and boring exercise one learns a lot more about what is really transpiring and where technology development and the standards that govern REALLY sit and it is much more fruitful in many respects than reading and parsing press releases or whitepapers issued by CDG or GSMA, by QUALCOMM or Nokia or Ericsson. or listening to their webcasts, and filtering the hype of ALL those hypesters. If you watched activity in 3GPP2 after cdma2000 (not CDMA2000) R'A & R'B' were 'completed' (i.e. functionally frozen) you know that the full body of its membership spun its wheels for almost 2 years evolving the R'C (1xEV-DV phase I) standard. While they were doing so QUALCOMM worked behind the scenes with a small subset of the full body in the Data-Only ad hoc and work there proceeded quietly as the full body spun its wheels for yet another year on cdma2000 R'D (1xEV-DV phase II). Cdma2000 beyond R'0 isn't dead, its simply parked on a shelf. A cool maneuver by the proprietor, who if anything, tightened its proprietary control of the technologies architecture and strengthened its architectural lock. << In contrast, the circle jerk in 3GPP to create "open" standards (ROF!) has lead to HUGE delays....and HIGHER ROYALTIES! >> The "circle jerks" like the one I described above in 3GPP2 have unfortunately contributed to abysmal technology adoption of CDMA2000 of any flavor which is why the CDMA toast is so much browner than the GSM toast my friend Caxton talked about for years -- and may now be muttering to himself about. <g> << Just because technologies are developed to meet the needs of certain markets IN A CERTAIN TIME FRAME, does not mean that they are "proprietary" in the sense that some put forward. >> Proprietary technologies, whether open or closed, generally get to market before open comittee-based compatibility technologies that are collaboratively developed. At the end of the day, first to market is not always best to market, and best to market by my definition' is measured by technology adoption. In this industry technology adoption can be measured by many metrics -- carrier adoption of technologies and his capex spend, Subscriber connections, Handset sales in units and dollars, infra sales in dollars, etc, -- and should not be measured by just one. Unfortunately CDMA2000 is sucking wind right now. Will it (they) catch a 2nd wind? Maybe. Maybe not. Over the next 12 months we'll have a better perspective when we see what Reliance's and Vivo's true intentions are, and what China does with or to Unicom or what they and partners do for themselves. I haven't talked about IP and I'm not going to at any length this weekend. As I told chapq last evening. prolonged IP discussions make my neck ache. At another time we can talk about covenants that probably exist in QUALCOMM licensing agreements -- especially newer ones that aren't extensions of those dating back to 1990-1992 -- that limit the capability of it's licensees to monetize its IP position in CDMA or litigate over it with other QUALCOMM licensees. We saw an example of this in Qualcomm v Nokia CA No. 04-CV-1605 (S.D. Cal. 2004) brought in U.S. District Court, Ninth Circuit in which ... Qualcomm alleges that Nokia breached the parties' BREW License Agreement ("BLA") by filing three patent-infringement actions against Kyocera Corp. and certain of its subsidiaries (collectively "Kyocera") in Texas and filing patent infringement counterclaims in an action Kyocera brought before this court. In particular, Qualcomm alleges that the BLA's Section 12.1 Covenant Not to Assert barred Nokia's patent-infrigement suits against Kyocera. InterDigital of course, which like QUALCOMM operates patent factories instead of whole product factories, is like QUALCOMM, somewhat shielded from the (changing) industry tradition of cross licensing on a royalty free or comparative net down basis. I might add that the distinction between proprietary standards (whether open or closed) and technology and standards developed collaboratively in SDO/SSOs will be taken into consideration by many if not most of the courts and antitrust/anti-competition bodies in the litigation in progress brought by QUALCOMM, or against QUALCOMM, including the several more that will undoubtedly be brought against QUALCOMM. I was, e.g., surprised to se action brought in Korea, before Japan, but I'll also be surprised if we don't see a filing there. China? Possibly. If so, by Chinese? Probably in conjunction with an FI. Best, - Eric -